Despite Improving Economy, Spanish disaffection mounts

Ask
anyone about it today, however, and you’re more likely to hear about a
working-class neighborhood that made international headlines in January.

That’s
when Gamonal was rocked by massive, sometimes violent demonstrations against an
$11 million municipal development project to convert its main drag into a
boulevard with a bicycle lane and underground parking.

Two
months on, locals say the protest movement provided strong evidence that five
years into Spain’s economic crisis, society is fragmenting.

With
unemployment rates still reaching 26 percent — and up to 40 percent among young
Spaniards — and a growing income gap between wealthy elites and a middle class
sliding toward poverty even as the economy slowly improves, very little was
needed to set tempers flaring.

Flanked
by tall brick buildings, four-lane Calle Vitoria lacks parking spaces because
many residents don’t own cars. According to an informal free parking strategy,
drivers park on the side of the street in two rows. Cars in the outside row
blocking the inner one are left unlocked and with their hand brakes off so
other drivers can move them to get out.

Most
residents like the system well enough — and certainly better than the city’s
plans. Parking in the proposed new garage would have been affordable only for
those able to pay more than $27,000 for a 40-year lease — a significant sum for
most Spaniards, especially Gamonal residents.

Most
believe the money would be better spent on social services.

Adding
insult to injury, a controversial tender awarded the project's master plan to a
businessman connected to the ruling conservative Popular Party who had been
convicted for corruption.

The
public’s response was to take to the streets.

“We spent two years saying 'No to
the boulevard’ in every way,” says protest
organizer Manolo Alonso. “They didn’t budge an inch. So what happened was kind
of like saying: ‘Hey, listen to us for once, OK?’”

White-bearded
Alonso’s biography is typical for Gamonal. He arrived as a child from a poor
nearby village, made his living carrying out hard manual labor and recently
lost his job.

Once
a small traditional village on the outskirts of Burgos, Gamonal saw a
population boom in the mid-20th century, when people from the countryside
flocked to the growing industrial hub.

Decades
of harsh factory conditions transformed many of the typically conservative
Catholic migrants into class-conscious workers.

Although
the poor neighborhood grew to house around a third of the city's 180,000
residents, it remained largely peripheral. Most visitors to the cozy,
tourist-friendly downtown never heard of it — until January, when Gamonal
became a Spanish household name after young protesters smashed bank windows and
set dumpsters on fire.

Dozens
of arrests fuelled the demonstrations, which prompted a wave of national
solidarity and more protests in Madrid, Barcelona and other cities organized
with the help of the Twitter tag #GamonalEffect.

The
pressure led Burgos’ mayor to suspend the construction project.

Residents
say their protests forced the conservative-led government to listen to the
people.

“The boulevard was the straw that
broke the camel's back,” says Mila Calvo, an outspoken
housewife who heads Las Eras de Gamonal neighbors' association. “Yes, there was
violence, but personally I’m more stirred by the sight of some of my neighbors
scrounging for food in the trash than by a burning dumpster.”

“We just want to be respected and taken into
account,” says Ana Moreno, president of the Francisco de Vitoria neighbors'
association. “You can’t spend all that money in an area where civic and
cultural centers need investment.”